The idea behind the SanDisk iXpand Flash drive is simple. Essentially a USB thumb drive that's equipped with a Lightning connector, it's all you need for an excellent storage expansion for your iPad (or iPhone).

The SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive instantly adds up to 128GB of storage space and it can work as a USB thumbdrive; Its iXpand Sync mobile app works very well both for media playback and content backup

The drive can't hold files larger than 4GB and only supports USB 2.0

My wife and I recently returned from our honeymoon in the American Southwest. We toured the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Lake Powell and the Hoover Dam over the course of nine wonderful days.

SanDisk's iXpand is a dual-pronged memory drive with a Lighting connector on one end and a USB interface on the other. It's designed to solve two problems: the first is the alleged difficulty in getting photos off your iPhone or iPad; the second is iOS devices' lack of expandable storage.

Easy to use; Plays back almost any media file; Clean and simple app

Bulky; No USB 3.0; Apple's ecosystem limits what the iXpand can actually back-up

Picked up a 16GB iPhone or iPad and realised you can't store much on it? Time to pick up one of the best after-market storage gadgets we've seen in recent memory: the Sandisk iXpand Drive for iPhone and iPad.

SanDisk's iXpand flash drive brings additional storage to your Apple iOS device, but is the performance it offers enough?

Thanks to the Lightning connector, you can't just plug a Micro-USB OTG drive into your iOS devices the way you can with Android phones and Windows tablets. You need a drive with the Lightning cable like the SanDisk iXpand , which is now available as a 128GB model, and with extra security options.

Using a iPad or iPhone you have grown to having fixed storage on these devices. They don't have expandable storage card slots like some android devices and you are pretty much stuck with what you have.

Android users have always enjoyed expanding storage capabilities of their devices using either memory cards or USB drives. Apple, on the other hand, has never added an expansion slot on the iPhone.

+ Easy transfer to iOS devices; + Long Battery Life; + Nice App

- Large in Size

This SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive is one of the best ways to add additional storage capacity to an iPad or iPhone. Find out how easy it is in this review.

T his is a little more than a simple USB 3.0/Lightening data transfer and storage device. Its first trick is packing a small battery into the unit, so extended use via Lightening won't need the iPhone or iPad's battery.